Kabuki's forgotten war : 1931-1945 / James R. Brandon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brandon, James R.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kabuki--History--20th century.

Kabuki.

War and theater--Japan--History--20th century.

War and theater.

World War, 1939-1945--Theater and the war.

World War, 1939-1945.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (482 p.)

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

According to a myth constructed after Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945, kabuki was a pure, classical art form with no real place in modern Japanese society. In Kabuki's Forgotten War, senior theater scholar James R. Brandon calls this view into question and makes a compelling case that, up to the very end of the Pacific War, kabuki was a living theater and, as an institution, an active participant in contemporary events, rising and falling in consonance with Japan's imperial adventures.Drawing extensively from Japanese sources-books, newspapers, magazines, war reports, speeches, scripts, and diaries-Brandon shows that kabuki played an important role in Japan's Fifteen-Year Sacred War. He reveals, for example, that kabuki stars raised funds to buy fighter and bomber aircraft for the imperial forces and that pro-ducers arranged large-scale tours for kabuki troupes to entertain soldiers stationed in Manchuria, China, and Korea. Kabuki playwrights contributed no less than 160 new plays that dramatized frontline battles or rewrote history to propagate imperial ideology. Abridged by censors, molded by the Bureau of Information, and partially incorporated into the League of Touring Theaters, kabuki reached new audiences as it expanded along with the new Japanese empire. By the end of the war, however, it had fallen from government favor and in 1944-1946 it nearly expired when Japanese government decrees banished leading kabuki companies to minor urban theaters and the countryside. Kabuki's Forgotten War includes more than a hundred illustrations, many of which have never been published in an English-language work. It is nothing less than a com-plete revision of kabuki's recent history and as such goes beyond correcting a significant misconception. This new study remedies a historical absence that has distorted our understanding of Japan's imperial enterprise and its aftermath.

Contents:

Kabuki's foreign adventure: 1931-1939

Prelude to war

Kabuki and the Manchurian and Shanghai incidents: 1931-1934

Kabuki and the Marco Polo Bridge incident: 1937-1938

The darkening storm: 1939

Fruits of victory: 1940-1942

Kabuki and 2,600 years of imperial rule: 1940

Confrontation with America and Britain: 1941

Japan and kabuki at the zenith: 1942

Defeat and survival: 1943-1945

Kabuki and Japan's "decisive battle": 1943

Kabuki is a luxury: 1944

The agony ends: 1945

War plays in kabuki, a retrospection: August 1945

Kabuki outlasts the occupation: 1945-1947

Inventing classic kabuki: 1945-1947.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [417]-438) and indexes.

ISBN:

9780824869137

0824869133

9780824863210

0824863216

9781441619754

1441619755

OCLC:

456566388